SUMMARY -- Engineers and scientists increasingly rely on computers
for their work. As a consequence most science
and engineering degrees have introduced a
computer programming course in their curricula.
However, lecturers face a complex task when
teaching this subject: students consider the subject
to be unrelated to their core interests and often feel
uncomfortable when learning to program for the
first time. Several studies have proposed the use of
the physical computing paradigm. This paradigm
takes the computational concepts “out of the
screen” and into the real world so that the student
can interact with them.
Using this paradigm we have designed and implemented
several introductory programming learning
modules for an introductory programming course in
science and engineering. These modules are to be
used in lectures and laboratory sessions. We selected
the Arduino board –an electronic board- and
LEGO –a robotic platform- as the hardware platform.
The effectiveness of the modules was assessed by
comparing two programming courses: in one the
teacher used traditional methods; in the other he
complemented these with the modules. We evaluated
the modules in a programming course for Biology
students and found that they were highly effective:
more students learned to program and more
students enjoyed programming.
These results suggest that the physical computing
paradigm involves the student more effectively in
the learning process.